


Stars Are For Wishing On

by sanguinity



Category: Strange Empire (TV)
Genre: Episode: s01e01 The Hunting Party, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-04-05 02:12:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4161747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinity/pseuds/sanguinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lovings had good horses and good guns and good clothes, and if they wanted to squander all that on Kelly and Robin, more fools them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars Are For Wishing On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amindamazed (hophophop)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hophophop/gifts).



> Spoilers for 1x01 The Hunting Party.
> 
>  **Warning** for threats of sexual abuse against minors.
> 
> Originally posted to [tumblr](http://sanguinarysanguinity.tumblr.com/post/115063643312/fic-stars-are-for-wishing-on).

Kelly kept a good, close watch on Mr. Loving, after he came up from nowhere to draw off the whorehouse owner and keep her and Robin hid. 

She hadn't bothered watching Mr. Blithely: him and his fancy city manners weren't never no mind to her. He might hide them in twenty wagons and save them from twenty whorehouses, but he weren't the kind to do nothing more than yearn, and then burn with guilt for the yearning. He would never find the guts to reach, and she and Robin could happily rob him blind in the meanwhile. There had to be money in that stagecoach somewhere, it only took the finding.

But Mr. Loving, he was another thing entirely. He was young and strong and clear-eyed, and not afraid to get his hands dirty. If he wanted Robin, the only thing Kelly could do about that was make sure Robin wasn’t there to be had.

So she watched him hard, watched his eyes and his hands, ready to spirit her sister away in the dark if she had to. But Mr. Loving’s eyes never lingered on them, always drawing back to his wife instead. Not the sneaking look of man trying to tumble someone right under his wife’s nose, neither. He simply seemed to like looking at his wife. Liked looking at his wife, and liked her looking back at him. It took the afternoon, but Kelly finally decided Mr. Loving was no threat, and relaxed enough to let Robin to coax her into playing dogs-and-coyotes with the boys that owned the wagon. 

So when Mr. Loving's wife interrupted the game to up and ask if they would be her daughters, Kelly glanced at her sister and put on a smile of dumb gratitude. It weren't no mind to Kelly to call this woman _Ma_ in exchange for three squares and a chance at whatever was in those saddlebags. Robin, sneaking coyote that she was, put on a smile twice as innocent. The Lovings had good horses and good guns and good clothes, and if they wanted to squander all that on Kelly and Robin, more fools them. Kelly and Robin would travel safe and eat well for a while, and move on when it was time.

Of course it all went straight to hell just like good things always did, and that was the last of the Lovings and their intriguingly swollen saddlebags.

 

Until the next evening, in that sweltering nightmare of whorehouse lamplight, and too few clothes and too many hands, when Robin whispered, “It’s  _her!”_  

Kelly gave over trying to figure how to work Mrs. Slotter, who didn’t want them whoring but didn’t seem to care all that much about it either way, against Mr. Slotter, who very much did, and looked hard at the latest cowboy who wouldn’t leave off and let them be.

It wasn’t a cowboy at all, but the woman from the day before. The soft one, the foolish one, the one who had wanted to mother them. Yesterday she had promised to care for them and keep them, and Kelly had felt only contempt for someone who would make herself so simple a mark. But now hard eyes burned under Mrs. Loving’s hat’s brim. Everything about those eyes said she meant to keep her word. Maybe she could even do it, too.

Mrs. Loving handed Kelly a thick roll of bills—she had known there was something worth having in those saddlebags!—and Kelly almost didn’t mind putting them into Mr. Slotter’s hand. Money didn’t always have to stay where it was put, after all.

“You girls all right?” Mrs. Loving asked, when she finally had them alone in one of the upstairs rooms.

Kelly and Robin nodded, and the woman went back to watching at the door, as tall and strong and solid as the door itself.

It was gross soft-headedness, but on the way out of there, Kelly lifted the Marshall star some fool had left just lying around. Whatever man brought it into that whorehouse, he clearly didn’t deserve to have it. Kelly reckoned the woman who wanted them to call her  _Ma_ maybe did.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [build a roof for me (the wishing remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4375199) by [evewithanapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/pseuds/evewithanapple)




End file.
